Christmas Reads at Hidden Bluff 2024

Christmas Reads at Hidden Bluff 2024. December 13, 2024.

Crawling under the blankets in the evening while listening to the wind whipping through the climbing roses just outside our bedroom is when I like to crack open an old story and lose myself in for a while. Wandering on a journey through a forest with majestic mountains and looking for adventures like old Bilbo Baggins in his younger days or like Mole who dashes out of his hole to see the world. These are the stories that settle inside the heart and satisfy the soul with deep roots of tradition and clearsighted views of right and wrong.

For a while I went through a period of reading trending modern literature- to give it a chance. I think I was trying to be relevant and understanding. But it did not sustain the soul, so I went back to the classics. Don’t get me wrong, I still read current items from time to time. I am referring to a diet of current trending book reads, a side trip I abandoned when my spirit became too queasy to take any more of the questionable morality in many of these books. My heart still repents of this, and I am much more discerning these days. I love the way God guides us gently back to where we should be.

So, I have returned to my old library. Many of these old books acknowledge God as the most high and governing force with a sense of holy and righteous fear. The authors take it as a given. There is no gray area to debate or question. Either God is God, and He is good or He isn’t. When you have truly experienced God’s grace there is no longer any doubt. It is a firm foundation to set one’s feet upon in a world of shifting sands. There is comfort in this. And so most of my book choices this month include the presence of God and His goodness and the joy of Christmas. Each of these is a delight to read and reread.

Christmas Reads at Hidden Bluff 2024

My dad introduced me to The Hobbit when I was quite young. To be honest, I was an adult before I really got into this story. But now, it is a favorite book filled with wonderfully descriptive adventures of one particular hobbit. A hobbit is not quite a dwarf- a bit smaller with hairy feet. Hobbits are not adventure seeking folks but are content to carry on their day-to-day doings. And our hobbit hero, Bilbo, is no exception. He is quite comfortable in his luxurious and roomy hole in the shire at Bag End. And then Gandalf the wizard shows up with a group of dwarves and takes him on an unexpected adventure that involves, trolls, elves, large spiders, orcs, dragons, eagles, and more. Tolkien’s writings are strongly influenced by Arthurian legends and Norse mythology. And adventures are a strong theme. A great book for kids and adults.

Winter Fire by Ryan Whitaker Smith has been on my list for a while, and I finally picked it up. GK Chesterton was a well-known and brilliant British writer of fiction, theology, philosophy and more in the early 20th century. Father Brown was his creation if you are familiar with the tv series that is loosely based on Chesterton’s writings. Smith compiles Chesterton’s writings on Christmas along with his own musings and questions into a daily Advent devotional. I am finding it to be a thoughtful piece and one to bring out again and again.

The Cricket on the Hearth, one of Charles Dickens Christmas novellas, is a sweet story unlike his other darker works. Dickens himself introduces the story as a “fairy tale of home”. Indeed, some of his critics considered it saccharine to the point of distaste. Personally, I rather like saccharine and happy endings, especially at Christmas as in the case of John and Dot Peerybingle, a happily married couple with a baby whose domestic bliss is clouded when John thinks he sees Dot carrying on with another man. John is a simple and honest man who dearly loves his wife and finds himself struggling with what to do. The cricket on their hearth is a guardian angel of sorts that protects the domestic happiness of the home, chirping when all is right. The cricket becomes a fairy that night to help John sort through what ends up being a misunderstanding.

I pull out Old Christmas by Washington Irving every year. This early 19th century book is not quite a “real book” with a central plot and themes but takes the form of several essays describing a traditional old English Christmas spent at a friend’s family estate. While the setting and characters are fictional the Christmas customs are not. Irving paints such a vivid and nostalgic picture of Christmas that one can’t help but see why there is a merry in Christmas. Many others were enchanted with his works as well because we have Irving to thank for reviving the Christmas culture in America. Dickens, a fan of Irving, would later take up the baton and cement Christmas tradition forever into culture with his own Christmas Carol story.

And last, but not least, my book of Favorite Poems for Christmas. I have brought this one out before, but rereading poems is no chore for me. I found this sweet book as well as others like it on Amazon and like the collection of poems by Rosetti, Tennyson, Dickinson, and more of our old favorites.

Have a beautiful day!

*No affiliates or monies. All opinions are my own.